Monday I got the small hallways off the kitchen painted (the walls and ceiling final coats). The trim still needs paint but the walls are finished and look much better matching the kitchen now!
Back hallway painted!Bathroom hallway painted
Tuesday night I finished installing all the outlets (including cable/electrical ones) in the livingroom, diningroom and front hallway. Then Ryan helped me install the hallway chandelier.
Chandelier is hung!
That’s it for actual house work until the party. The rest of the week is party decoration/prep stuff! Lots of cleaning and decoration making going on.
Oh Sunday – such a ‘lazy’ day 🙂 We went out to breakfast per usual but this time with the whole gang. Alex and Ryan got their haircut after breakfast and then home for some play time with the cousins. At naptime Ryan’s parents headed home with the girls and I started hanging lights. I got the fan in the livingroom and the light in the cupola hung. After some lunch I also got the diningroom light hung.
Fan!Light in the cupolaDiningroom chandelier
I also got the light at the bottom of the stairs hung (wanted to see how these would look since I’ve been holding on to them for 4 years!). And started the chandelier in the front hallway but need a second pair of hands to hang this one!
Light in stairway (there are 3 that will go up the stairs eventually)Chandelier, this did not come with shades so I just ordered some.
Ryan had to work all day Sunday so Alex and I did a little shopping in the afternoon, then went to the park and home for dinner. She was up quite late so by the time I came downstairs I wasn’t up for much except making plans for the rest of the week. I have a very busy week ahead!
And I got a picture of the last cabinet with molding on top that Ryan finished Saturday:
It was a Williams’ family weekend! Ryan’s parents brought my nieces out for the weekend to entertain Alex and we got plenty of painting done while the kids were happily playing together! Added bonus, we got extra family time in!
Friday night everyone showed up in time for dinner, so we ate and played and by 8pm it was bedtime for Alex and the girls settled in for a movie. Alex went down easy so I was able to get some painting done, and since we had already eaten dinner I had an early start! I got all the ceilings painted (the small sections off the kitchen that needed a coat, the front hallway, the livingroom)! First coat on those last 2 so they needed a final coat still. Kitchen ceilings were done though. And I was done by 10pm which is EARLY considering the rest of this week!
Saturday we got an early start since Grandma was there to handle breakfast for the kiddos. I started by getting all the trim sanded while Ryan’s dad did the final coat on all the ceilings and then helped me finish sanding. Ryan finished the moldings on the last cabinet so they are completely done now!
Once the sanding was done it was time to start painting the walls, Ryan’s dad and I got the first coat on the walls in both the livingroom and diningroom by lunch time. Our neighbor was over and finished priming the ceiling boxes by lunch time.
Ceiling boxes all primedDiningroom with 1 coat on trim, 2 coats on walls
After lunch my neighbor sanded and then primed the trim in the back hallways off the kitchen (there was one small section I finished up later). Ryan installed the trim at the bottom of the columns while Ryan’s dad, Ryan and I did the second coat on the walls. Walls and ceilings done! Just one coat on trim left at this point!
Small hallway off the kitchen, trim all primedBack hallway trim primed
One other small project for Saturday, Ryan got the doorbell at the front door installed (it doesn’t do anything yet but it looks nice!).
The livingroom! 2 coats on walls and ceiling, 1 coat on trim (sanded and ready for 2nd coat)Other side of the livingroomAnother view
Tomorrow we have our regular breakfast plans and Alex needs a quick haircut for her birthday and school pics this week! Then home to do some more work, I’m hoping to hang the lights and fan and get a start on the trim painting. The plan is by the end of Monday or Tuesday the livingroom will be done except for the floor, windows needing paint and crown molding (always the last thing to do!). All things we will hopefully do soon 🙂
Someday my birthday party planning with simply be planning for a party (favors, decorations etc.) but like last year we have a huge push to get the house as done as possible before the party since this is the only time of year some of our family gets to see our house! So the big push continued last weekend.
Friday my neighbor came over and finished filling nail holes and got the upstairs linen closet taped. Saturday he came back and sanded ALL the trim in the livingroom and diningroom (including ceiling boxes). Not a fun job!
Ceiling boxes are pretty much where they will be for party
There is some hope we’ll get them caulked and primed but I’m not actually that hopeful (ryan is). We’ll see.
Our contractor was only here Saturday and he got baseboard caps installed in the kitchen, baseboards on the backs/sides of cabinets and baseboards in the front hallway (the one section we can do currently).
Hard to see but those baseboards finally have caps!And this little hallway off the kitchen has baseboard caps too!Baseboards in the front hallway
The front hallway is basically where it’s going to be for the party as well, although I do hope to maybe get the ceiling painted so I can install the light. Not a deal breaker though.
Ryan and I caulked all the trim in the livingroom and diningroom Saturday, sanded (and scraped) the big archway in the livingroom and Ryan finished putting up any trim that was missing (a few of the shadow boxes in the wainscotting and the plinth blocks in the front hallway). Saturday was a busy day handing off toddler duty and house work.
I stained the oak knee wall caps the color we will stain our floors when we refinish them!The other one and the trim all primed
Saturday night we stayed up till 1am priming all the trim in the livingroom – yikes!
Trim all primed!
Sunday was another busy day but Ryan had to work so it was just me painting when I could fit it in. Alex decided to skip her nap but she was in her crib from noon-three (with some breaks where we went in to rock her to see if that would help – it didn’t). But it was a few hours for me to paint and then the evening when Ryan watched her. First I finished up priming all the trim in the diningroom (not the ceiling or columngs, but the baseboards and windows).
Baseboards primed
Baseboards wrap around and end at the edge of cabinetWindows are all primed!
And finally some actual paint …
Hard to see but it’s linen white, the wainscoting is all going to be this solid color along with all the trim. The walls will be a light brown later on.
Some poly on the knee wall capsThis side of the archway and 2 windows are painted
Painting takes a while because there’s a lot of surface area! But hopefully a little progress each night will be made. Once we get a coat on I want to get 1 coat on the walls so we can see the finished look just about. This whole working in the evenings only works if work isn’t busy but here’s hoping, I need some evenings off, been a busy few months!
Aimee, Jason and little Jason welcomed little Madelyn to the family last friday! Alex and I drove down for 5 days in CT to hang out with little Jason and make the time that Aimee and Jason were in the hospital a little easier on him (Alex is a fun distraction). Little Jason did great, he missed his parents but had lots of fun with his cousin, grandma and auntie Cole 🙂 Baby Maddy is doing great, she was a bit early so she stayed at the hospital when Aimee came home but we have high hopes that she can maybe come home by next week?? 🙂
In the meantime, Ryan stayed home (he had to work) and worked on the house over the weekend, our contractor and neighbor came for the whole weekend so when I got home Tuesday night I had a LOT to see! Let’s start with the diningroom:
First up, the drywall is temporarily hung in the second half of the ceiling now, we will remove it to finish plumbing but for now it will look a bit nicer to have it up.
Ceiling sheetrocked in diningroom
The chair rail and baseboard cap was installed ALL the way around the diningroom and livingroom. The one small section in the diningroom that has to remain unfinished (for plumbing) has none but it’s behind our hutch.
Chair rail and baseboards!
Also notice the walls are primed in here – our neighbor sanded and primed the diningroom (or the section we are finishing anyway) on friday!
The wainscoting – oh wow – so the livingroom is completely done, the diningroom they ran out of the trim for this so there are 2 small boxes left but here’s a view of the diningroom side of knee-walls.
The left one isn’t done, and there will be one on the left of the built-ins.
And on to the livingroom:
First up the cupola – baseboard cap and chair rail done!
And check out these knee walls, the posts are mostly done (they will have trim at the top and bottom but that’s waiting until I finish the oak parts). The quarter round and filler blocks are installed so they match our porch columns! The wainscoting is done:
Just needs some paint!Another view, wainscoting is done on that back wall too!
And a view of the front section of the livingroom – also finished
Wainscoting!
These pictures were from Tuesday night, i really should take new ones now that I’ve cleaned and moved stuff but we’ll be painting this weekend so more pictures will be posted after that.
Note the livingroom was also sanded (what was left to sand) and primed!
The front hallway was sanded and primed too!
Entryway ready for trim!The first story of the stairs is primed tooThe rest of the front hallway primed
So exciting! Now we have a lot of holes to fill, some caulk, lots of sanding and priming of trim! Then painting of walls to do! This weekend we’ll get to work on that prep work and painting. I’m hoping our neighbor can come and finish spackling upstairs, including the linen closet, get that sanded and primed soon too. He can also do some prep on the trim with us.
Just 2 weekends to work until the party! Plus i need to make time to go down and see little Maddy when she comes home from the hospital! So much to do!
Last weekend I took Friday off of work (kind of, I still came home to work all evening but the intention was there and I had the *DAY off) 🙂
My friend Sarah recently just bought a new house and had a few projects she wanted to do so I went down there to help her out. The main project was sanding down the railings and adding a coat of poly since they were so rough. We did a few other projects too but she’s having the whole house prepped and re-painted so that didn’t have to be done.
The weekend it was back to working on our own house. Saturday we drove around all morning looking for trim we liked and ended up finding something decent we are happy with. This is for the chair rail and shadow boxes in the livingroom. While we were gone our contractor and neighbor were working away. The vertical posts were covered nicely and then baseboards installed in the diningroom.
See that beam on the left of the knee wall.
And this beam is also doneBaseboards are in (still need cap molding but we dont’ have it yet).
Baseboards in the livingroom were started (cupola mostly done).
Livingroom cupola baseboards
And our neighbor finished spackling the front hallway and closet. So spackle wise we have one section of the diningroom being left un-done for now and the upstairs hallway left. I hope this weekend to have him sand and prime what is done on Friday!
Front hallwayTowards the doorStairway (just the bottom 1/2 is done, my neighbor is afraid of heights!)Front closet
Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning Ryan’s project (with my help) was the moldings on the cabinets. As you see, the taller cabinets have a very complicated multi-piece molding. It’s kind of crazy actually. We even modified it and removed 2 of the backer pieces by lowering the very top molding or it would have been an inch taller than it is now! So first Ryan got one tall cabinet done, then he did the smaller cabinets that just have cove moldings.
Saturday progress (these 2 cabinets)Sunday progress – these 3 lower cabinets – just 1 more cabinet to go!
During naptime Saturday I also got the molding on around the microwave cutout, we completely forgot we bought this molding but it was in with all the cabinet crown!
Looks much better now!
And finally my last project for the weekend was getting the final coat of paint on the bathroom door! It’s all ready to hang now!
Door done, my little helper helping to put hinges on
All in all a very good weekend. If my neighbor is good with priming walls, then this weekend we’ll start the chair rail and shadow boxes! I need to pick the next door to start refinishing (probably a tvroom door) and we have some electrical to do (I need to hook up that microwave outlet and remove a bunch of knob and tube just sitting around).
This weekend Alex and I went down to Aimee’s house to work on their new nursery (for baby #2!). Alex wasn’t much help but luckily Grandma was there to entertain the kids so I could help on the nursery. Jason got the wallpaper off, I scraped around the trim and then skim coated 2 walls. A good start! Gotta get this room done before baby girl arrives!
Wall number 2 after the scraping was done, the first wall was mostly skim coated at this point.And after the skim coat – looks great!Hard to get a view of the first wall due to the lighting
Meanwhile back at our house on Friday the work continued, our contractor continued work on the ceiling boxes and our neighbor got the front hallway walls taped. I haven’t gotten pictures yet so will post that later on.
Another great weekend of house progress. Our contractor and our neighbor were over Friday and Saturday, they got the sheetrock finished in the diningroom (the part we can do), the first round of taping in the upstairs hallway (and stairwell!) finished and the archway in the livingroom stripped the rest of the way! Woohoo!
Upstairs hallway taped!This is the ceiling from the ground floor.
Then the real fun began. Ryan started working on the window trim in the livingroom. Saturday he made all the window sills (he actually made 2 for the diningroom too!), then he made and installed the filler strips, then installed the side pieces of molding and the window aprons on Sunday. The tops couldn’t be done because the rosettes had to be stripped.
Window trim! And you can see the arch here too.Check out all those windows just waiting for rosettes and top pieces!
Which brings us to my participation. I stripped all the rosettes for the livingroom Sunday afternoon (that was 12 total) – fun stuff 🙂 So many left to go though still!
And my final participation this weekend was getting the crown molding sanded in the kitchen, ready to be primed. I also finished sanding the trim in the back hallway around the doors. The mini hallway outside the bathroom still needs sanding but I ran out of time.
Crown is sanded and ready to be primed!
Another little project got completed as well, the outlet in the microwave cabinet cut-out got in-set (Ryan cut out the piece of cabinet and sheetrock so I could install the outlet back about an inch). The means the microwave fits nicely now (the plug sticks out so far the microwave wouldn’t fit nicely. So now I just have to wire that outlet to the panel box and paint and install the nice trim we have for the outside of the cutout. Then we’ll have our microwave installed permanently as originally planned. Can’t wait!
I’m hoping to focus on finishing the kitchen as much as the front livingroom. Our main goal is to have a playroom, finished kitchen and almost finished? front hall before Alex’s birthday part! We’ll see!
Our contractor and neighbor came over Friday and Saturday this week and we have a sheetrocked stairway now! It was not easy sheetrocking that section over the stairs, we left the original ceiling in place (there are only 2 ceilings in the whole house we are leaving, this one and the front livingroom). They sheetrocked right over it. Not easy since my neighbor is afraid of heights, that will be one section he is not taping 🙂
Stairwell from the topThe wall of the stairwellOur closet wall at the top of the stairsOutside Alex’s room at the top of the stairsThe window at the top of the stairs
There’s a lot of taping and spackling to get done now. The diningroom has some sheetrocking to finish up, then some of that will be taped, the front hallway, stairway and upstairs section. That will be the next couple of weeks. In the meantime I need to get some electrical done in the hallway upstairs and we’ll be able to start moving that way.
Ryan and I worked on finishing touches in the bathroom, I sealed the counter (because I noticed it darkened when wet so it probably would be good to seal), all the rods and bars were installed, the mirror was hung. It’s just about complete, we’re waiting on the shower rod to come tomorrow (although we moved the one from downstairs temporarily for now). I’ll get final pictures tomorrow when the rod is in. We have to paint the door and get that hung back up and then it will be really done, doors are always last in this house 🙂
Our contractor and neighbor came on Friday and Saturday again this week so lots of progress was made!
Friday our contractor started stripping the archway in the livingroom. Even though there is no lead paint in this (we had everything tested so we know where the lead paint is – upstairs mostly), I wanted the fumes to be cleared out before Alex got home so this isn’t something I can do on a weekend when she’s here. The arch can’t be moved outside to get done 🙂
The back of the arch is just the top, we have to make sides for this part of the arch since it’s so narrow on this side.And the front side, some great progress for one day!
Our neighbor worked on the front hallway, getting the ceiling and a few missing pieces of sheetrock filled in. The front hall is now ready to be taped/spackled!
Ceiling by the front doorOther part of the ceilingStairwayThose bottom pieces on each side of opening were filled in Saturday morning after I wired up the last outlet there. Alex is mopping up for us Sunday night 🙂
On Saturday the sheetrocking continued, our contractor firred out the wall at the top of the stairs, outside the nursery so it is ready for sheetrock at some point (soon). Our neighbor started sheetrocking the diningroom and we got the outside wall of the diningroom ready to go too (baseboard removed and pipes cut out from radiator).
All ready for sheetrock!Inside wall of diningroom is done! No more cold air coming up through that old chimney causeway. We left it so the sheetrock only has a screw in each corner and can easily be removed to finish plumbing etc later. But it’s closed up to make the room warmer for now!We can finish one side of the diningroom without interfering with plumbing so they got sheetrock up on the first ceiling section.
On Sunday, Ryan installed the vanity in the bathroom so it’s all ready for Jason to finish up the plumbing this week hopefully!
Vanity installed!Another view now that the light switch covers are all installed.
I didn’t get a picture but Saturday during naptime I got the crown molding in the kitchen all caulked and holes filled, ready to get sanded and primed! I also finished up the electrical in the diningroom Saturday so sheetrocking could commence. It was a great progress weekend and we mostly relaxed on Sunday with Alex. I cleaned Sunday and then let Alex continue to ‘mop’ after I got everything cleaned up. We get to use the house for a week and then it gets dirty Friday/Saturday and I clean on Sunday. But progress is being made and I’m NOT complaining!
Next weekend will be interesting, we may have them attempt to sheetrock the ceiling above the stairs! That one project is definitely stressing us out a bit so that would be great to get done.
